LitFilm 2024 Keynote: Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project Screening & Talkback

Documentary, dir. by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson
U.S., 2024, 102 min

This award-winning documentary travels through time and space to reveal the enduring influence of Nikki Giovanni, one of America’s greatest living artists and social commentators. Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project reckons with the inevitable passing of time through a collision of memories, moments in American history, live readings, and visually innovative treatments of Giovanni’s poetry. This film will be followed by a conversation with directors Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, moderated by Touré.

Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson co-founded Rada Studio to balance their family life with their passion for the arts. Together, they have built an impressive portfolio of fiction films, documentaries, immersive installations, and books. Their work has garnered several accolades, including five Emmy nominations, two Oscar shortlistings, two Spirit Award nominations, three Cinema Eye Awards, and a nomination for Best Documentary Film at the 2021 Canadian Screen Awards.

In 2024, Joe and Michèle were honored with a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Merit in Documentary for "Going To Mars." Also, they received the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for "Black Girls Play."

Joe and Michèle are Guggenheim Fellows and Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences members. They received top awards at the Sundance Film Festival in 2013 for "American Promise" and in 2023 for "Going To Mars," as well as at the Tribeca Festival in 2018 for Best Immersive Experience and in 2023 for Best Short Documentary. They are deeply committed to outreach and the social impact of their storytelling. In 2014, their "Black Boys" campaign received the Henry Wickham Impact Award and the BritDoc Puma Prize for Best Worldwide Outreach Campaign. In addition, the couple's best-selling companion book, "Promises Kept," earned them an NAACP Image Award for Excellence in Literary Work.

Joe and Michèle's current focus is on mentorship and the collaborative process. Through their non-profit mentorship lab, Rada Collaborative, they nurture the next generation of independent-minded creatives. The Rada Studio team continues to share and inspire people to think critically, and they remain deeply grateful for the journey.

Touré is an accomplished writer, cultural critic, podcaster, and TV host. In Touré Show, he highlights the success stories of Black actors, musicians, politicians, athletes, activists, as well as other people of color and allies through in-depth interviews. Listeners walk away with practical advice they can use in their own pursuits of success.  Touré’s newest podcast, Who Was Prince?, is a documentary series offering the ultimate look at the greatest and most mysterious musician of the modern era. Having written the most comprehensive life story on Prince in his book I Would Die 4 U, Touré writes, produces and narrates this new podcast that goes beyond the book and gives a true look into who the iconic entertainer was on and off stage.

Touré is known for exploring Black identity and the concept of post-blackness—the idea that a person can be rooted in but not restricted by their race, or by prescribed definitions of race. He has written five books, including the critically acclaimed Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means To Be Black Now, which the New York Times described as “one of the most acutely observed accounts of what it is like to be young, Black, and middle-class in contemporary America.”  Touré has made his mark in television, too. He served as CNN’s first pop culture correspondent and covered News and Public affairs programming for BET. From 2012 to 2015 he co-hosted The Cycle on MSNBC alongside Ari Melber, Krystal Ball, and Abby Huntsman and even had his own reality show, I'll Try Anything Once, where he took a shot at everything from skydiving-while-black to rodeo clowning.

All screenings are free but require reservations. Times subject to change. For the full LitFilm roster, go here.